knight, ‘I wouldn’t take his evidence to hang a dog!’ ‘And here he is,’ said Hungerford, ‘trying to hang a Protestant!’ Other witnesses spoke to the infamous life led by Mrs. Mason; others swore that the ‘Scheme’ was not in Layer’s handwriting, and Layer himself denounced it as a forgery. He and his counsel argued one after the other in his defence; he did not trust his case entirely to their idea of conducting it; and they seemed more pleased than troubled by his interference. His courage, without the slightest bravado, was beyond all praise. His course was rather to deny the alleged proof adduced on the trial than to deny acts which, he contended, were unproved. [Sidenote: _THE VERDICT._] The Solicitor-General then, in a manner, rushed at him. When he had finished his long and blindly furious speech, Kettleby merely said in reply: ‘I shall not take up much of your Lordship’s time, especially since your Lordship and Court have been so long and so well entertained by Mr. Solicitor-General at least two hours, as I have observed by my watch, but it was impossible for me to think him tedious, though so late at night.’ Therewith, he seated himself; and a few persons having been called by the Crown in support of the honesty and virtue of some of its very questionable witnesses, the Lord Chief Justice summed up with a cruel sort of equity, and the verdict of _Guilty_, which followed from an unanimous jury, brought to an end a trial of eighteen hours’ duration. [Sidenote: _LAYER’S DIGNITY._]